“Transportation” is what we call it when people or goods need to be moved from one place to another. Transportation has existed as long as human beings have existed. A thousand years ago, transportation was accomplished via pack animals, boats, or good old-fashioned human locomotion. A hundred years ago transportation technology added streetcar and passenger rail, while trucks and freight rail provided transportation for goods.

Having defined the transportation system, we can analyze it. A thousand years ago, transportation was quite expensive – pack animals require a lot of labor, and so do sailing ships. A hundred years ago the cost of transportation was cheaper than ever before … but Americans were on the verge of making a change.

In the 1920s the United States was removing streetcars and trains and replacing them with private motor vehicles. Human beings had invented a new technology: the refinement of oil into gasoline, and we were going to use gasoline to power our transportation from then on.

Gasoline is cheap to produce. Oil comes up out of the ground and then goes through a refinement process. Oil refinement is more efficient at scale, so increasing production will reduce the overall price. Any negative effects of the refinement process or the burning of the gasoline was ignored or dismissed in the 1920s.

A century on, we can’t ignore the negative effects of burning gasoline – gasoline is destroying our cities and our planet. Motor vehicles pollute the very air we breathe with toxic fumes. Millions of people suffer respiratory illness every year because of dangerous air pollution. And whether or not you believe it, burning gasoline releases CO2 back into the atmosphere, gradually warming our fragile ecosystem.

Air pollution is the cost of using gasoline to power transportation. Humans have moved from animal power, to wind and wave power, and finally to gasoline power. 99% of extracted oil goes to power our transportation in the United States, and we use more gasoline per capita than any other country. The US is now the biggest oil producing country in the world, and most of that oil is used for gasoline.

We use so much gasoline because cars are huge, heavy vehicles and they are still getting bigger and heavier. Cars are also shockingly expensive, requiring vast amounts of labor and materials to produce. Despite the high price tag, most cars are scrap in 20 years or less. Motor vehicles traveling at high speed are dangerous, killing 40,000 Americans every year due to the physics of mass and energy. The weight of the vehicles does massive damage to our roads and highways, forcing us to spend more and more tax money to rebuild those lanes.

If cars have all these negatives, why haven’t we invented something better?

Here’s the big conspiracy that “they” don’t want you to know: Cars are not the only transportation option. Many other transportation options exist and those options are cheaper, less polluting, and far less dangerous than cars.

Prioritization of motor vehicles is a massive policy failure by our government. It doesn’t matter which party you are affiliated with, they’re in the pocket of Big Auto. In the 1920s, Big Auto told politicians to tear out the streetcars, and the politicians did it. In the 1950s, Big Auto said we needed to chop up our cities, and the politicians spent billions of dollars to build urban freeways. By the 1990s there was congestion everywhere so Big Auto demanded that we add more lanes and more highways to keep traffic flowing, and our politicians wrote the checks. The 2008 housing crisis meant that few people were able to afford a new car, and politicians were there to give Big Auto a taxpayer-funded bailout so that the factories would keep churning out cars.

Our government has been subsidizing Big Auto for a century now, and the media is full of advertising to make sure that you don’t question those subsidies. “Cars are Freedom” is the selling point and Americans buy it hook, line, and sinker. There are so many potential options for transportation other than cars, but 92% of transportation trips in the United States are taken by large, heavy, expensive, polluting motor vehicles.

Bicycles are also a form of transportation. So are ebikes, and scooters, and other small electric vehicles. Buses are transportation, along with electric streetcars, subways, and light rail. Regional rail is transportation and so are high-speed electric trains. Transportation has always existed and humans will need transportation as long as our species exists, but cars are not the only transportation option!

We need to break the stranglehold of Big Auto and Big Oil. Cars are large, dangerous vehicles and they are a poor transportation option. Here in Portland we have other options like bicycle-safe greenways, streetcars, light rail, and a solid bus network. For the last six months, I’ve lived here without a car. I get groceries on my bike and I ride the bus down to city hall to advocate for change. Living “car light” or “car free” takes some time to get used to, but change is possible.

Until we get rid of gasoline, our children will continue to live under a permanent blanket of pollution. Until the entire country has options for transportation, our politicians will continue to bend over for Big Auto and Big Oil.

Change is not only possible, it’s urgent. Please join me in being part of the change.